Researchers in China employed CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to disrupt Dysfunctional Tapetum 1 (DYT1), encoding a conserved regulator of pollen development in plants, and successfully induced complete male sterility in soybean. Phylogenetic analysis identified three DYT1 genes in soybean, among which two bHLH genes, GmDYT1a and GmDYT1c, exhibited distinct expression patterns, and their encoded proteins displayed different subcellular localizations. The study establishes CRISPR/Cas9-mediated editing of DYT1 as an effective strategy for generating male-sterile lines and provides a genetic resource for hybrid breeding in soybean.

Researchers have developed a scalable polyolefin bilayer membrane that helps roofs stay cool while resisting the loss of reflectivity caused by aging and dirt. The membrane achieved 94.1% solar reflectance and retained 83% after xenon-arc aging equivalent to ten years under the adopted testing protocol. Outdoor tests showed an average roof-temperature reduction of 9.4 degrees Celsius and a maximum reduction of 18.1 degrees Celsius, highlighting its potential for long-term building energy savings.

Gastric cancer induces opposing virome changes in blood and gut. The blood virome shifts from phage-dominated to predominantly Anelloviridae (>80%) with a sharp diversity decline, whereas the gut shows increased diversity. We identified 67 novel anelloviruses, one novel gemykibivirus, and Betatorquevirus as a potential blood biomarker for non-invasive diagnosis.

A research team led by Professor Jiandong Ding at Fudan University has derived a set of equations for random degradation inspired by the classic Poisson raindrop problem, providing the first theoretical framework to quantify “acquired heterogeneity” — the uneven degradation that emerges during service rather than from manufacturing defects. Applying this framework to biodegradable metal stents, the team discovered that coating iron with polylactide (PLA) increases the corrosion rate by 3-fold but reduces corrosion inhomogeneity by 4,000-fold in blood-mimetic medium, paradoxically leading to later device fracture despite faster degradation. The resulting metal–polymer composite stent was validated in preclinical porcine studies, clinical trials involving 1,108 patients across multiple cohorts, and 5-year follow-up of 45 first-in-human cases, demonstrating safety, durability, and reliability. The theoretical framework is, in principle, applicable to any field where random spatiotemporal variability undermines system performance, from ship corrosion and bridge fracture to climate variability and big data analytics.

The FAST All Sky HI Survey (FASHI) team has released its second data set (DR2), cataloging 156,411 extragalactic neutral hydrogen (HI) sources over ~19,500 square degrees — nearly half the entire sky. The number of detected sources is nearly four times that of the first data release (DR1) and five times that of the Arecibo ALFALFA survey. With a median sensitivity of 0.57 mJy/beam, FASHI DR2 represents the largest and most sensitive blind HI survey ever conducted, providing a landmark dataset for studies of galaxy evolution, cosmology, and large scale structure in the local Universe.

An efficient few-shot framework was developed for large-scale annotation of light-trapped insect images. MLTIDD integrated Grounding DINO, SAM, and SAHI for multi-scale insect detection, while InsectSSRL exploited massive unlabeled insect images to enhance few-shot classification. MLTIDD achieved 79.6% AP50–95 and 90.8% AR, while InsectSSRL achieved 80.35% classification accuracy using only 5% labeled data. The framework reduced expert annotation time by approximately 80%, enabling efficient large-scale dataset construction.

Researchers at Wuhan University developed a molecular-sieve-assisted confined molten-salt route to grow 2.66 nm Na₂Nb₄O₁₁ single-crystal sheets. Devices made from the material combined sensitive ultraviolet detection with millisecond response and stable cycling, and enabled UV imaging and proof-of-concept two-wavelength physical-layer information encoding.